A good many of the forest-people claimed that old Mr. Crow was an
outlaw. They said he was always roving about, robbing Farmer Green of
his corn and his chickens, and digging up the potatoes when they shot
their sprouts above the surface of the potato-patch. And everybody was
aware that the old gentleman stole eggs from the nests of his smaller
neighbors. It was even whispered that Mr. Crow had been known to devour
baby robins.

But perhaps some of the things said of him were not true. Though if he
really was an outlaw he seemed to enjoy being one. He usually laughed
whenever Johnnie Green or his father tried to catch him, or when they
attempted to frighten him. And on the whole he was quite the boldest,
noisiest, and most impertinent of all the creatures that lived in
Pleasant Valley.

His house stood in a tall elm, not too far from the cornfield. And those
that dwelt near him never could complain that the neighborhood was
quiet.... It was never quiet where old Mr. Crow was.

Many of the smaller birds feared him. But they couldn't help laughing at
him sometimes--he was so droll, with his solemn face, his sedate walk,
and his comical gestures. As for his voice, it was loud and harsh. And
those that heard too much of it often wished that he would use it less.

Mr. Crow's best friends sometimes remarked that people did not
understand him. They said that he helped Farmer Green more than he
injured him, for he did a great deal in the way of eating beetles,
cutworms and grasshoppers, as well as many other insects that tried
to destroy Farmer Green's crops. So you see he had his good points,
as well as his bad ones.

For a number of years Mr. Crow had spent each summer in Pleasant Valley,
under the shadow of Blue Mountain. He usually arrived from the South in
March and left in October. And though many of his friends stayed in the
North and braved the winter's cold and storms, old Mr. Crow was too fond
of a good meal to risk going hungry after the snow lay deep upon the
ground. At that season, such of his neighbors as remained behind often
dined upon dried berries, which they found clinging to the trees and
bushes. But so long as Mr. Crow could go where it was warmer, and find
sea food along the shore, he would not listen to his friends' pleas
that he spend the winter with them.

"Until I can no longer travel 'as the crow flies,' I shall not spend a
winter here," he would say to them with a solemn wink. That was one of
his favorite jokes. He had heard that when anybody asked Farmer Green how
far it was to the village he always answered, "It's nine miles as the
crow flies"--meaning that it was nine miles in a straight line.

Old Mr. Crow thought that the saying was very funny. But then, he usually
laughed at Farmer Green, no matter what he said or did.